Obama Signs the Monsanto Protection Act

[Pogo]

Here's a look at that two-year French study that's been referred to earlier:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymUeQ0QfKI4]GMO KILLS! Study by Private French Firm - YouTube[/ame]

Couple of reveling takeaways:
Prior to this, studies controlled by Monsanto had been limited to three months duration; and this one shows the shit-hits-the-fan moment on experimental rats at four months ; that previous studies isolated elements like glysophate individually, rather than the end product of what happens after the plant processes it; and this:

""Monsanto requires contracts to be signed stipulating that the seeds must not be used for testing and an arrangement must be made prior to the testing".

 

[Lakhota]

Sen. Roy Blunt: Monsanto's Man in Washington

 

[Pogo]

Monsanto Protection Act put GM companies above the federal courts
Campaigners say that not even the US government can now stop the sale, planting, harvest or distribution of any GM seed​

The Guardian, April 4:

>> Monsanto and the US farm biotech industry wield legendary power. A revolving door allows corporate chiefs to switch to top posts in the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies; US embassies around the world push GM technology onto dissenting countries; government subsidies back corporate research; federal regulators do largely as the industry wants; the companies pay millions of dollars a year to lobby politicians; conservative thinktanks combat any political opposition; the courts enforce corporate patents on seeds; and the consumer is denied labels or information.

... The key phrases are a mouthful of legal mumbo jumbo but are widely thought to have been added to the bill by the Missouri republican senator Roy Blunt who is Monsanto's chief recipient of political funds. << (poster note: see link/story in post 322; and note the parallel between keeping consumer info secret (labels) and injecting this amendment anonymously)

(continuing story): >> The backlash has been furious. Senator Barbara Mikulski, chair of the powerful Senate appropriations committee which was ultimately responsible for the bill, has apologised. A Food Democracy Now petition has attracted 250,000 names and sections of the liberal press and blogosphere are outraged. "This provision is simply an industry ploy to continue to sell genetically engineered seeds even when a court of law has found they were approved by US department of agriculture illegally," says one petition. "It is unnecessary and an unprecedented attack on US judicial review. Congress should not be meddling with the judicial review process based solely on the special interest of a handful of companies."

Remarkably, though, it has also offended the Conservative right and libertarians. FreedomWorks, the conservative thinktank that helped launch the Tea Party, says corporations should "play by the rules of the free market like everyone else, instead of hiring insider lobbyists to rewrite the rules for them in Washington". Dustin Siggins, a blogger for the Tea Party patriots, has called it a "special interest loophole" for friends of Congress. "We are used to subsidies, which give your tax dollars to companies to give them advantages over competitors. We are used to special interest tax loopholes and tax credits, which provide competitive and financial benefits to those with friends in Congress. And we are familiar with regulatory burden increases, which often prevent smaller companies from competing against larger ones because of the cost of compliance. This is a different kind of special interest giveaway altogether. This is a situation in which a company is given the ability to ignore court orders, in what boils down to a deregulation scheme for a particular set of industries," he writes. <<

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =​

Lots of good resources in the links, hence they're carried into the quote.
Some worthy snippets therefrom:
1) >> Monsanto and other agribusiness and food companies have spent more than $45m (£28m) to defeat a California ballot measure that would require labelling of some GM foods. << ("courts enforce corporate patents on seed" above)

2) >> The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any Euroxpean Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.

In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.

.... In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.
Because many Catholic bishops in developing countries have been vehemently opposed to the controversial crops, the US applied particular pressure to the pope's advisers. << ("US embassies around the world" link above)

3) (sublink from "pay millions of dollars a year to lobby politicians" link): Monsanto consistently outspends all other agribusiness companies and interest groups to protect and maintain industrial agriculture&#8217;s dominance over our food system.

In 2008&#8212;the last year a federal Farm Bill was completed&#8212;the company reported a whopping $8.8 million in lobbying expenditures (see table below) intended to influence decisions in Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other federal agencies.

... According to documents the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it spent $120 million on advertising in fiscal year 2010, $100 million in FY 2011, and $87 million in FY 2012.

These ads are often strategically placed to reach Washington decision-makers, showing up at DC airports and train stations and near federal office buildings. They tell a story of heroic farmers who "grow our economy, provide us with jobs and protect our environment"&#8212; even as Monsanto lobbies for policies that will make it harder for farmers to do those things.<< ("Monsanto consistently outspends" link above, which is a part of this site)

One more resource: Millions Against Monsanto

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Neither of those has anything to do with GMOs, what about them?

Science deniers like you

Is that because I said that climate change is real, and that humans are contributing to it?

I apologize if I misrepresented what you have said on the subject. I didn't do a search on it.

You do not believe the science behind the scare tactics of the GMO crowd, or you disagree with their portrayals of all science?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Monsanto Protection Act put GM companies above the federal courts
Campaigners say that not even the US government can now stop the sale, planting, harvest or distribution of any GM seed​

The Guardian, April 4:

>> Monsanto and the US farm biotech industry wield legendary power. A revolving door allows corporate chiefs to switch to top posts in the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies; US embassies around the world push GM technology onto dissenting countries; government subsidies back corporate research; federal regulators do largely as the industry wants; the companies pay millions of dollars a year to lobby politicians; conservative thinktanks combat any political opposition; the courts enforce corporate patents on seeds; and the consumer is denied labels or information.

... The key phrases are a mouthful of legal mumbo jumbo but are widely thought to have been added to the bill by the Missouri republican senator Roy Blunt who is Monsanto's chief recipient of political funds. << (poster note: see link/story in post 322; and note the parallel between keeping consumer info secret (labels) and injecting this amendment anonymously)

(continuing story): >> The backlash has been furious. Senator Barbara Mikulski, chair of the powerful Senate appropriations committee which was ultimately responsible for the bill, has apologised. A Food Democracy Now petition has attracted 250,000 names and sections of the liberal press and blogosphere are outraged. "This provision is simply an industry ploy to continue to sell genetically engineered seeds even when a court of law has found they were approved by US department of agriculture illegally," says one petition. "It is unnecessary and an unprecedented attack on US judicial review. Congress should not be meddling with the judicial review process based solely on the special interest of a handful of companies."

Remarkably, though, it has also offended the Conservative right and libertarians. FreedomWorks, the conservative thinktank that helped launch the Tea Party, says corporations should "play by the rules of the free market like everyone else, instead of hiring insider lobbyists to rewrite the rules for them in Washington". Dustin Siggins, a blogger for the Tea Party patriots, has called it a "special interest loophole" for friends of Congress. "We are used to subsidies, which give your tax dollars to companies to give them advantages over competitors. We are used to special interest tax loopholes and tax credits, which provide competitive and financial benefits to those with friends in Congress. And we are familiar with regulatory burden increases, which often prevent smaller companies from competing against larger ones because of the cost of compliance. This is a different kind of special interest giveaway altogether. This is a situation in which a company is given the ability to ignore court orders, in what boils down to a deregulation scheme for a particular set of industries," he writes. <<

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =​

Lots of good resources in the links, hence they're carried into the quote.
Some worthy snippets therefrom:
1) >> Monsanto and other agribusiness and food companies have spent more than $45m (£28m) to defeat a California ballot measure that would require labelling of some GM foods. << ("courts enforce corporate patents on seed" above)

2) >> The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any Euroxpean Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.

In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.

.... In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.
Because many Catholic bishops in developing countries have been vehemently opposed to the controversial crops, the US applied particular pressure to the pope's advisers. << ("US embassies around the world" link above)

3) (sublink from "pay millions of dollars a year to lobby politicians" link): Monsanto consistently outspends all other agribusiness companies and interest groups to protect and maintain industrial agriculture’s dominance over our food system.

In 2008—the last year a federal Farm Bill was completed—the company reported a whopping $8.8 million in lobbying expenditures (see table below) intended to influence decisions in Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other federal agencies.

... According to documents the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it spent $120 million on advertising in fiscal year 2010, $100 million in FY 2011, and $87 million in FY 2012.

These ads are often strategically placed to reach Washington decision-makers, showing up at DC airports and train stations and near federal office buildings. They tell a story of heroic farmers who "grow our economy, provide us with jobs and protect our environment"— even as Monsanto lobbies for policies that will make it harder for farmers to do those things.<< ("Monsanto consistently outspends" link above, which is a part of this site)

One more resource: Millions Against Monsanto

They tell a story of heroic farmers who "grow our economy, provide us with jobs and protect our environment"— even as Monsanto lobbies for policies that will make it harder for farmers to do those things.

Monsanto is making it harder for farmers?
How, by creating products that keep increasing farm yields?
By creating products that farmers keep buying?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Science deniers like you

Is that because I said that climate change is real, and that humans are contributing to it?

I apologize if I misrepresented what you have said on the subject. I didn't do a search on it.

You do not believe the science behind the scare tactics of the GMO crowd, or you disagree with their portrayals of all science?

There is no science behind the anti GMO crowd.

GMO Worry Warts: This is Your Brain on Ignorance and Ideology : Collide-a-Scape

 

[Pogo]

An interesting history of what Fortune Magazine called "possibly America's most feared corporation" over its history of making saccharine, aspartame, drugs, plastics, synthetic fibers, Agent Orange, PCBs, and in the process creating pollution nexuses in Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Alabama, West Virginia, Texas, Massachusetts, and even wiping the town of Times Beach Missouri completely out of existence.

>> The agriculture and life sciences company that&#8217;s known today as Monsanto is only a recent development. Most of Monsanto&#8217;s history is steeped in heavy industrial chemical production &#8212; a legacy that is extremely at odds with the environmentally friendly, feed-the-world image that the company spends millions trying to convey.<<

Full report (in PDF)

Not to mention the Texas City explosion, biggest US industrial chemical disaster ever...
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TworcINhDhQ]Texas City Explosion - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Mad Scientist]

They tell a story of heroic farmers who "grow our economy, provide us with jobs and protect our environment"— even as Monsanto lobbies for policies that will make it harder for farmers to do those things.

Monsanto is making it harder for farmers?
How, by creating products that keep increasing farm yields?
By creating products that farmers keep buying?

Monsanto uses Patent Law to control most of the Soy and Corn Market in the US (90%?). Yes, GMO Corn and Soy IS patented (at least Monsanto stuff is).

You know what that means?

It means Farmers have to buy seeds every year for that years crops, no more using seeds from previous years as that is Patent Infringement!

This is not bad news, this is good news! Now Farmers will go broke planting crops and have to sell the Farm or get repossessed by Bankers! Soon Big Agra will control all the food production in the US and sell to whomever they want! Hint:It won't be to Americans.

It's the perfect Banker Business!

 

[Mad Scientist]

There is no science behind the anti GMO crowd.

I agree. Just because GMO "Roundup Ready" Soy kills the insects that eat it, that doesn't mean it's harmful to Humans.

 

[Pogo]

There is no science behind the anti GMO crowd.

I agree. Just because GMO "Roundup Ready" Soy kills the insects that eat it, that doesn't mean it's harmful to Humans.

It may or may not mean that (and without real study that's not rubber stamped by Monsanto we'll never know), but of course what happens is, since the soy is immune to the herbicide, and since the volunteers (weeds) build up a tolerance to it, the grower must pour more and more Roundup on the crop. That this makes Monsanto even more money through its own abuse of Nature is secondary; of more immediate concern is that this increasing level of an herbicide --a poison-- is built up inside the soy (or corn, or cottonseed, etc) --- which then ends up in our food, so that we're not only eating frankenfoods perverted by chemical-porn addicts, we're eating Roundup with it.

Not to mention, glyphosate (Roundup's active ingredient) gets sprayed on places like urban sidewalks as a lazy way to control "weeds", and ends up washed into the groundwater by rain... but that's OK, we're willing to wash poison into our own water supply so that we might not be inconvenienced by the horror of seeing a dandelion poking up through a sidewalk crack.

 

[Mr. H.]

RonSanto was one of my favorite Cubs.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

They tell a story of heroic farmers who "grow our economy, provide us with jobs and protect our environment"— even as Monsanto lobbies for policies that will make it harder for farmers to do those things.

Monsanto is making it harder for farmers?
How, by creating products that keep increasing farm yields?
By creating products that farmers keep buying?

Monsanto uses Patent Law to control most of the Soy and Corn Market in the US (90%?). Yes, GMO Corn and Soy IS patented (at least Monsanto stuff is).

You know what that means?

It means Farmers have to buy seeds every year for that years crops, no more using seeds from previous years as that is Patent Infringement!

This is not bad news, this is good news! Now Farmers will go broke planting crops and have to sell the Farm or get repossessed by Bankers! Soon Big Agra will control all the food production in the US and sell to whomever they want! Hint:It won't be to Americans.

It's the perfect Banker Business!

Monsanto uses Patent Law to control most of the Soy and Corn Market in the US (90%?).

OMG! That's awful! They force farmers to buy better seed. Oh, wait, farmers buy it because it has a higher yield.

There should be a law against that. LOL! You're stupid.

 

[Toro]

lol

 

[KissMy]

Sadly, this would have happened even if Romney were elected. Corporations like Monsanto have paid for our politicians a long time ago.

You nailed it there. How Mitt Romney Helped Monsanto Take Over the World

Monsanto would have gone bankrupt if they had to pay to cleanup their toxic waste. But thanks to Mit Romney's political connections they were given time to spin off the toxic waste onto Solutia, imploding the debt into bankruptcy & let the statute of limitations run out so US tax payers got stuck with the cleanup bill. Don't you just love corporate welfare? Monsanto took the swindled cash & bought up most of the worlds food rights. Because we bailed them out they are now taxing all the food we eat. ENJOY!

 

[LoudMcCloud]

I want a GMO enema.

 

[francoHFW]

You mean he signed a Continuing Resolution (that ends Pub crisis BS till September) that the a-hole Pub senator from Monsanto added this amendment to...

 

[KissMy]

Look studies on rats that consumed GMO for more than 9 months.

The rats on my farm reproduce like crazy eating GMO grains.

 

[Pogo]

The Struggle to Reclaim Paradise​

>> At 9 am on an overcast morning in paradise, hundreds of protesters gathered in traditional Hawaiian chant and prayer. Upon hearing the sound of the conch shell, known here as P&#363;, the protesters followed a group of women towards Monsanto’s grounds.

“A’ole GMO,” cried the mothers as they marched alongside Monsanto’s cornfields, located only feet from their homes on Molokai, one of the smallest of Hawaii’s main islands. In a tiny, tropical corner of the Pacific that has warded off tourism and development, Monsanto’s fields are one of only a few corporate entities that separates the bare terrain of the mountains and oceans.

... The presence of these corporations has propelled one of the largest movement mobilizations in Hawaii in decades. Similar to the environmental and land sovereignty protests in Canada and the continental United States, the movement is influenced by indigenous culture.

“All of the resources that our kupuna [elders] gave to us, we need to take care of now for the next generation,” said Walter Ritte, a Hawaii activist, speaking in part in the Hawaiian indigenous language.

“That is our kuleana [responsibility]. That is everybody’s kuleana.”

In Hawaiian indigenous culture, the very idea of GMOs is effectively sacrilegious.

“For Hawaii’s indigenous peoples, the concepts underlying genetic manipulation of life forms are offensive and contrary to the cultural values of aloha ‘&#699;&#257;ina [love for the land],” wrote Mililani B. Trask, a native Hawaiian attorney.

(poster note: see again ^^ "playing God" in thread discussion)

>> ... In Hawaii, some open-field testing sites are near homes and schools. Prematurity, adult on-set diabetes and cancer rates have significantly increased in Hawaii in the last ten years. Many residents fear chemical drift is poisoning them.

......... Hawaii has already succeeded in protecting its traditional food from genetic engineering. Similar to the way the Big Five controlled varying sectors of society, the biotech engineering companies are financially linked to the local government, schools and university. Monsanto partially funds the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at the University of Hawaii. The university and the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center began the process of genetically engineering taro in 2003 after the university patented three of its varieties. Once this information became widely known, it incited uproar of objection from the Hawaiian community. Taro holds spiritual significance in the islands’ indigenous culture, in which it is honored as the first Hawaiian ancestor in the creation story.

“It felt like we were being violated by the scientific community,” wrote Ritte in Facing Hawaii’s Future. “For the Hawaiian community, taro is not just a plant. It’s a family member. It’s our common ancestor ‘Haloa …. They weren’t satisfied with just taking our land; now they wanted to take our mana, our spirit too.”

The public outcry eventually drove the university to drop its patents. <<

 

[MikeK]

The phony sonofabitch also has proposed cuts in Social Security.

 

[Pogo]

Roundup Could Be Linked To Parkinson's, Cancer And Other Health Issues, Study Shows​

>> The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.

Those residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," the study says.

We "have hit upon something very important that needs to be taken seriously and further investigated," Seneff said.

Environmentalists, consumer groups and plant scientists from several countries have warned that heavy use of glyphosate is causing problems for plants, people and animals.

The EPA is conducting a standard registration review of glyphosate and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining if glyphosate use should be limited. The study is among many comments submitted to the agency.

Monsanto is the developer of both Roundup herbicide and a suite of crops that are genetically altered to withstand being sprayed with the Roundup weed killer.<<

(Study is here):

>> Glyphosate's inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Here, we show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer&#8217;s disease. <<​